Wrong Place, Wrong Dimension
by ardavenport
Summary: Captain Picard has been captured and unintentionally injured by beings from another dimension who are not as familiar with the needs of the Human body as they should be. Doctor Crusher is taken as well while the Enterprise crew try get them back.
1. Chapter 1

**WRONG PLACE, WRONG DIMENSION**

by ardavenport

* * *

><p><strong>- - - Part 1<strong>

Jean-Luc Picard lay curled up on his side on an unidentified soft/hard surface. It was an undignified position, but he didn't move. He wasn't on the _Enterprise_, no one to see him, anyway. All around him was glaring white. There were no shadows at all, not even under him. Whatever he lay on shone as mercilessly bright as the rest of the echoless void around him. Even with his eyes tightly closed he could still see a dim glow from the glare. The only sounds he'd heard for hours was a faint white-noise that may, or may not, have been of his imagining, his own utterances (not all of them pleasant), and the energy crackle of the creatures that had apparently abducted him.

He peeked out at his surroundings. No change. He rolled over onto his other side. The burns on his head, neck, and back where his captors had stung him were really hurting him now. He gingerly touched a blister, on of many, forming on his cheek. It was impossible for him to rest his head anywhere without putting weight on at least one of them, but it didn't quite hurt enough yet to force him to get up.

It was insufferably hot. He was thirsty and his mouth had a vile acidic taste that he wished he could wash out. Clearly, the creatures of this place only had the vaguest idea of the proper environmental conditions for a human. At least they'd gotten the gravity, and especially the atmosphere, about right. But there was too much visible light and no telling how much other radiation as well.

Finally, after he felt he'd recovered enough, he got up. Along with his other injuries, he was getting a dreadful headache.

He stood.

Head down, squinting, protecting his eyes with his hands, he paced out a large oval path. When he completed one circuit he walked out in a straight line perpendicular to the oval's minor axis. At the end of the line, he turned left a few paces, took a step away from the imaginary oval, then walked towards it and back and then returned to the original line out from the oval. He repeated this secondary line in the opposite direction.

He sincerely hoped his captors would get the message. He went back to where he'd started the oval and began tracing out the figure of the _Enterprise_ again.

In spite of all that had happened to him, he didn't think his captors were hostile. In fact, they seemed to be trying to communicate with him. Unfortunately, their 'speech' seemed to come only in the form of bolts of high voltage static electricity. They clearly had no idea of the needs and vulnerabilities of the human body. But they were surely able to detect the electrical activity of his brain and nervous system which would explain why all the marks they'd left on him were about his head and spine.

Sound had been a miserable failure for him when he tried to talk back to them. Speaking, yelling, clapping, tapping. all proved utterly useless; he wasn't even sure if they needed an atmosphere at all. They were spherical, no wider than his shoulders, and floating at about eye level. Random shapes of blue and pink radiance flitted over them and even the dark patches of their bodies seemed to glow. Arcs of pale yellow energy lanced out from them when they tried to 'speak' to him. He counted himself fortunate that they had not touched his eyes and ears. Perhaps they had understood his body language when he so consistantly covered them when they approached him. He was hoping that they would comprehend the body language of the figure he now traced.

He finished his second oval and continued the pattern trying to carefully retrace his steps. It was very difficult. He could barely see in the blinding glare around him and even if he could his surroundings were featureless, with no reference points at all.

And his headache was getting worse.

Since these beings had whisked him off the bridge of the _Enterprise_, they had appeared to him several times. They used some form of matter/energy transport that had left him hideously nauseated and disoriented. The first thing he'd done after arriving was to vomit up his lunch. Almost immediately he'd been bombarded by three of them, stinging him from all sides. But after several minutes of him frantically trying to get away from them, they finally stopped.

He finished his second outline and started a third. He squinted at his surroundings and hoped again that one of the creatures would appear and take an interest in what he was doing. But he appeared to be totally alone. He'd tried exploring his surroundings, but it seemed to be endless as well as barren. He couldn't even be sure of where he was, having lost his only reference point; the place where he'd retched when he'd arrived. He noticed that his hands, half covering his eyes, appeared a bit pink.

When they came, the energy creatures appeared in twos and threes. They would sting him, he would duck and move away, they would approach more cautiously, and then sting him again. His one and only success in communicating with them had been during their last visit. He'd found that lying down, curled up on his side, would stop them from trying to 'talk' to him. They would come very close to him, so near he could feel his skin tingle, but nothing else.

They did understand motion and maybe even shapes. Perhaps they would understand the outline he was tracing and that that was what he wanted.

Unless something changed, his prospects for survival were not good.

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p><em>First officer's log. It has now been five hours since Captain Picard was taken from the Enterprise. We have been unable to locate him with ship's sensors, though Counselor Troi feels that he is alive somewhere.<em>

_\The alien . . . . . . ship, such as it is, has not changed position since its initial attack on us. We have been unable to communicate with it since our first encounter. Efforts to do so are proceeding, as are repairs to the ship's bridge and engineering sections._

Commander Riker looked down the table at the assembled officers in the observation lounge. Seated at the head of the table, where Captain Picard normally sat, he stroked his beard and mulled over what he'd just heard.

"You're trying to tell me that they were just looking us over, Mister Data?" he asked a little incredulously.

"Yes, Sir," the android answered placidly. "We have had great difficulty with our own scans of the alien craft; it appears to exist in multiple dimensions. However, their actions upon boarding the _Enterprise_ were not inconsistent with what activity we have been able to discern aboard their ship. And the pattern of their movements and the manner of their arrival and leaving are more consistant with reconnisence rather than attack."

"If that's what they do all the time, I don't know how they keep anything running," Geordi LaForge interjected. "We're still replacing burned out-components down in Engineering."

Riker glanced at the amorphous cloud visible outside the room's wide view port. The alien 'ship' didn't even have a definable outline. "Status in engineering, Geordi?"

"We're functional, Sir. We should have the warp drive up and running any time now, though don't ask me why it didn't blow up after those things got into it. Sciences is still doing double shifts, trying to make some sense of what happened to us and get a handle on that ship."

"Why did they take him?" Doctor Crusher asked the room in general.

"Doctor?" Riker returned.

"Why did they have to take the Captain?" she repeated.

"Presumably they wished to study him, if we are correct in assuming that their actions are motivated solely by curiosity," Data answered her calmly, "It would appear that the abduction has no relation to his position as Captain." He activated the view screen behind Riker's chair and they all turned toward it. A yellow-on-black diagram of the bridge, with blinking white circles indicating crew positions appeared on it.

"Lieutenant Worf and I have studied the initial analysis of the incident." A blue circle appeared in the center of the diagram and began expanding. "This particular energy discharge began in the exact center of the bridge. It then proceeded outward, equally in all directions, until it encountered something. In this case, it was Captain Picard, who was standing at the time." The perimeter of the blue circle touched one of the white ones. It broke and reformed around it's target before they both vanished from the picture.

"Red alert!" Lieutenant Worf's voice filled the room. "Commander Riker to the bridge." The red alert klaxon started up. In the room's view ports, the alien ship was already noticeably closer and advancing.

Riker tapped his comm badge as he hurriedly stood up with the others. "Shields up, Mister Worf."

Riker, Data, Troi, and Crusher entered the bridge at a brisk pace. Lieutenant Commander LaForge had already disappeared in a turbolift, heading for engineering.

"Status Mister Worf?" Riker demanded, taking the command chair.

"The alien ship is closing at point six three light speed, Sir."

On the main view screen, the picture of the alien craft grew, shimmering silver in some places, glowing dull white in others, nearly transparent in still others.

"Take evasive action, impulse power," Riker ordered. The alien ship slid off the screen for a moment then reappeared. Its cloudy form filled the screen.

"Geordi, we need the warp drive, now."

Back in Engineering, seconds after arriving, LaForge cursed the readings he saw. One of his assistants, Ensign Leflar, shook her head. "Sorry, Sir. It's no go. I can give you more power for the shields."

"Do it!"

"Six seconds to impact," Worf reported.

"All hands, prepare for collision," Riker announced. The ship shuddered under them.

"The shields seem to be holding them." Worf checked the readings at his station behind Riker. They had had no warning the last time and no time to bring up the shields. The ship shuddered again. Down in Engineering, LaForge and his staff frantically adjusted the shields, filling in any weaknesses, quelling instabilities caused by the engulfing alien ship and its shifting energy patterns. All over the ship, people waited at their red alert stations or at their assigned positions, some of them monitoring ship status from where they were. The starship shuddered again, the lights on the bridge flickering.

"Commander," Data said from his station. "We are experiencing an energy surge . . . ."

"The engines?" Riker asked.

"No Sir, the energy build-up is in the shields . . . ." Data's voice trailed off as he followed an ominous bulge of power on the shipwide control pathway network. His hands swiftly flew over the controls, trying to cut it off.

"Commander . . .," was as far as he got. The Ops station flashed a bright, pale yellow. Lightning arced out to his midsection. His internal, upper thorax sensors dispassionately registered an unmeasurable energy increase. Overload Danger -EMERGENCY SHUT D-

Data stiffened, and rigid, fell to the side.

"Data!" Riker bolted up out of the command chair, just before similar energy twisted up from the control mechanisms of the command chair's arm rests. The room's lighting ceased to have any meaning. Pale yellow and pink energy snaked out from every control on the bridge and illuminated the room with its eerie strobe effect.

"Data!" Riker had nearly reached the fallen android when a new, steady, glow washed out the other flashes. Riker turned back to see a wall of blue light coming straight at him . . . .

. . . . . reaching the place where Doctor Crusher stood, centimeters before it would have touched him. She vanished, surrounded by the blue glow that instantly enveloped her. Riker took a step toward where she had just stood. A whirlwind of light so bright it didn't have any color dazzled him; the smell of ozone hit him the same time as a charge of pain touched his temple, his whole head.

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*<strong>

* * *

><p>Picard cursed.<p>

He was literally cooking in this empty hell. The skin on his hands and face had reddened and was beginning to hurt him along with the burns he'd acquired earlier from his hosts.

His attempts at communication had yielded nothing. Presumably his captors didn't understand him. He thought it was a stupid way to die, from their ignorance.

He sat, knees up, hands tucked in next to his body to protect them, face down. For once in his life, he could have wished for a little more hair on his head.

Thump. 'Wheeeeet, eeeee."

He looked up. In front of him were two enormous feet, flat like flippers, and wide, covered with tough leatherish, gray-tan skin. He looked up the legs, the torso and finally to a wide, flat 'head' tilted down at him. It had no recognizable human features. It spread outward to either side like a huge rigid manta ray, but with a subtlely ridged and fluted skin. Blunt horns lay in front, underneath the forward lip of the top, and a 'fin' crowned its top. The whole stucture seemed to be uniformly made of the same material as the rest of the creature.

"Eeeeerrrrr, breeeetteettttteeeeet, tck, tck"

The noise came from a large black hole between the horns under the forward edge of the head that towered over him.

'At last,' he thought. He held his empty hands up. "I'm Captain—-"

Something whipped out from the hole in the creature's head, entwined his wrists and jerked him to his feet and off the ground. The creature smelled of must and methane and decay and he turned his head aside, away from it.

They vanished from the white plane.

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p>Lieutenant Worf picked himself off the deck, forcing himself to his hands and knees. He looked up in time to Commander Riker step towards him, his head colliding straight into a glowing ball of yellow and pink energy. The human's body convulsed and hurtled to the side, out of Worf's line of sight.<p>

Worf reached for the phaser concealed in the Klingon sash he always wore. He actually spared a second, while adjusting the phaser power, to acknowledge his Starfleet training that said that one should always carefully consider the consequences of firing a phaser. Even amid the confusion and ominous crackle of power above and around him he had no trouble targeting the intruder that had just attacked Commander Riker. He aimed, allowing himself another half-second to savor the intense pleasure of engaging an enemy in combat.

He fired.

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p>Beverly shakily sat back and hugged her knees. Another wave of nausea hit and she fell to the side, retching. But her stomach was empty now, so nothing more came up. She spit again and again, trying to rid herself of the after-taste. After a time, she rolled back up into a sitting position and wrapped her arms around her knees again. She tried looking about at her surroundings, but it was useless; she couldn't see a thing in the blinding heat and whiteness around her.<p>

Was this where the captain had been taken? She again looked about in the glare, carefully searching for any variation at all in the totally uniform horizon.

"Jean-Luc?" she tried calling, with no answer. She called again, louder. She heard no answer, not even an echo returned to her in the heat. Her words fell flat in the air, deadly still and rank from her illness.

Thump.

Beverly whirled about, looking upward. A great creature stood over her where only seconds before there had been nothing. She stared straight up into a gaping hole, like a cave, under a wide, flatish 'head' atop a featureless body. It looked as if it were made of stone.

"Wheep!" The almost electronic-sounding noise came from the depths of that great maw.

"Uh, ah, I...," She gulped unintelligibly. I must sound like a fool to it, she thought. But she never finished her half-started introduction. Long tongues, like vines, slurped out and down at her from the maw, wrapped tightly around her wrists and lifted her upward.

The world around her suddenly went black and her stomach lurched. It was even worse than when she was snatched from the bridge. The horrible sensation that space itself was somehow wrong inside her body was magnified from the first trip. It was only remotely similar to the disorientation of a very bad free-fall. Other than that pale association, she had noting else to compare it with.

Then it was gone. Gravity returned. The grip on her wrists loosened and fainting, she fell forward.

* * *

><p><strong>- - - End Part 1<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**WRONG PLACE, WRONG DIMENSION**

by ardavenport

* * *

><p><strong>- - - Part 2<strong>

"Warp engines are out-again. It'll take us another 18 hours to get them back on line," LaForge reported. Nothing on the bridge worked except for life support and emergency lighting. Worf had had to borrow a communicator from one of his security people to contact Engineering. His own was useless, its circuitry fused.

The Klingon privately assessed the damage and added LaForge's information to what he already knew. It could have been much worse. The second attack, a mere twenty minutes ago, like the first one had been concentrated exclusively on the main bridge and in engineering, the two most vital areas of the ship. It was a sound tactic with baffling execution. It still made no sense at all to the Klingon that his single phaser shot had stopped everything. He was certain that he hadn't seriously affected the creature or whatever it was that had appeared on the bridge. It had simply chosen to stop its attack and flee back to its spectral ship. Worf tossed the unanswerable question aside in his mind and reported the facts as he knew them about the status of the bridge to Lieutenant Commmander LaForge.

A dozen techs opened panels and cataloged the damage. The injured had already been taken to sickbay. Except for the ensign at the secondary science station, Counselor Troi, and himself, everyone else had been seriously wounded in the second attack. He resisted the impulse to rub at the burns he felt at his waist and on his arms. This was not the time to show weakness. He did not mention his minor injuries to LaForge.

"You hear anything about Commander Riker or Mister Data?" LaForge asked.

"Sickbay has reported nothing. They have enough casualties to deal with. I am quite certain Counselor Troi will notify us when there is any significant news." He accepted a note padd from a civilian tech. Its tiny flat screen showed him an abbreviated version of the ship's status that he would normally obtain from his own duty station, when it was functioning.

"I have transferred control to the auxiliary bridge and personnel are standing by there for you."

"What?" LaForge sounded puzzled.

"Commander, we do not know when there will be another attack on the _Enterprise_ from these creatures. We must be ready for them. With Commanders Riker and Data injured, you are in command."

"Worf, I can't leave engineering, now," Geordi answered.

Surprised and annoyed by this lapse, Worf continued. "Respectfully, Sir," he reminded tightly. "We must be prepared for another another attack . . . .,"

"You're better able to take care of that than I am, Worf. My first priority should be the warp engines . . . ."

"Your staff is perfectly capable of proceeding with your direction from the auxiliary bridge . . . . . ," Worf answered, his anger rising.

"Worf, I can't leave engineering . . . . . ," Geordi cut him off and then paused. He fingered the curved metal and plastic in his hands. There was a fine crack near the middle of its 'C' shape. He touched it with his fingernail, tracing its short length over and over. All around him people were moving about, talking, disconnecting burnt out controls, shutting some things down, activating others. One, or maybe two, people were waiting next to him, presumably with another report or more questions. "Worf, . . . . . . my VISOR was damaged in the last attack. I can't see," he explained very carefully. "I can't do anything for you on the auxiliary bridge, so I might as well just stay here where I can do some good."

"Were you injured?" Worf asked, his anger fading.

"I'm fine, . . . . . ."

"Then I am in command," Worf said quietly, more to himself than to LaForge.

"What?" Geordi asked, not quite hearing him.

Worf straightened. "Commander, you will report to sickbay, at once."

"What? I'm only blind, Worf, I can still . . . . ."

"Without your eyes, you are incapable of assisting directly. Any questions you might be able to answer can be answered from sickbay, where your sight can be restored. You will report there immediately"

"You don't give me orders, Lieutenant."

"Unless you can take command at the auxiliary bridge, you are relieved of duty, Sir."

"Worf, they just sent thirty of my people down to sickbay and I don't know how many from the bridge! They won't have time to do anything for me now, so I . . . . . ."

"Worf to Security," he opened another channel.

"Lieutenant Gangis here, Sir."

"You will send two people to Engineering and escort Lieutenant Cmdr. LaForge to sickbay, at once."

"Worf, you can't do this!" LaForge's voice rose. Worf cut the channel. He'd already delegated that task and it deserved no more of his attention.

He sourly looked down at the ruined controls of his station. He had intended to begin dismantling it, but now that was no longer an option for him. He singled out the senior engineering tech on the bridge.

"Lieutenant Darwin, you are now in charge of repairs to the main bridge. I will direct ship's activity from the auxiliary bridge." He hardly waited for her 'Yes, Sir.' before he turned and left.

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p>Picard lifted the cloth from the pool and wrung it out. The sleeves and front of his uniform were drenched. He put the cloth over his head. The material was stiff, a little scratchy, but it absorbed the water and it's coolness quite well. White light from the bottom of the pool shone up underneath the opaque veil over his eyes. But it was not the blinding, killing white of his previous environment, just simple, flat, illumination. The only other lighting came from panels in the centers of the rooms of this new place.<p>

He plunged his hands back into the water up to mid-forearm. Even the palms of his hands felt sun-burned, though he doubted that the blaze he had experienced came from any star. Lines of red, bleeding sores scored his wrists where the gray creature had touched him. He assumed they were some kind of acid burns, though he had no way of determining what type. Other than that, he had suffered no further injury from it; the marks on his wrists seemed to be unintentional. His new captors, whoever they were this time, at least knew what the proper environment for a humanoid was.

He had passed out after his encounter with the gray creature. He suspected that its mode of transport involved some kind of inter-dimensional shifting through dimensions where the physical laws that governed the matter of his body did not apply; unhealthy for the flesh, but tolerable for very brief periods of time. He had awoken a short time ago in the three rooms he now occupied.

The first room, the largest, was circular, a hemisphere with a door, or rather, a flat panel that looked like a door to him. He hadn't been able to open it. The furnishings were totally generic. Small cubes and rectangles to serve as tables and chairs. On the largest of these, standing no higher than his waist, were stacks of pastel plastic cubes and cylinders and disks and boxes. The floor was strewn with small spongy circles of varying sizes, plus a large rectangular mat upon which he'd been laid. At one end of the mat had been a pile of cloths and blankets of assorted sizes and textures.

The second room, slightly smaller than the first, was empty except for a huge raised basin of water. It rippled and circulated in such a fashion that one side was hot and steamy while the other was so chilled that ice formed around the side of the bowl. The middle was somewhere in between and this temperate area was so large that he could have taken a bath if he'd so chosen. The water had been a blessed, if only superficial, relief for his injuries. He'd used the 'idiot test' and sampled a small swallow. It tasted flat and distilled, not very refreshing, but presumably pure. When he didn't suffer any ill effects, he satisfied the thirst that had built up after hours of being in an inferno and his headache had faded considerably.

The third room contained one of the widest assortments of orifices and fixtures for the disposal of trash and elimination of bodily wastes that Picard had ever seen.

All three rooms were dark and gloomy, with mottled curving gray walls and central floor lighting. They were like caves with smooth walls. He privately dubbed them the lavatory, the bath room, and the living area. But except for himself, he had seen no other creature in them.

Picard heard a sound, unmistakably similar to the doors sliding open on the _Enterprise_. He pulled the cloth up away from his face and got up from the pedestal of the basin where he'd been kneeling and nearly fell over. The floors of the rooms had a great deal of elastic give to them; it was somewhat like walking on a soft mattress. Rustling, dragging, and thumping noises that were nothing like footsteps came from the living area. He stepped around the basin and stopped.

A creature stood in the arch between the bath room and the living area. No more than a meter in height, the first features he saw were the two huge bulging eyes atop its head and a grinning mouth full of jagged teeth.

"You will wait here. Avi will speak to you later," it hissed through that wall of teeth. Then it bounded away on kangaroo-like legs, flicking its tail behind it.

"Wait!" He didn't try to run after it, he couldn't have out-distanced it even if he'd had steady footing to run on. He saw it, and a couple more like it, disappear in a swish of tails and a flash of the metallic material they wore. Then the door whisked shut behind them.

The room was as before, except for a huddle of blue on the floor mat.

"Beverly!" He hurried over to the floor mat and knelt. "Doctor Crusher?" She lay on her side and shuddered when he touched her shoulder. She stirred and opened her eyes.

"Jean-Luc..." She sat up, swaying from a wave of dizziness and nausea. He steadied her.

"Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine," she told him, using him for support, resting her head on his shoulder. He slowly put an arm around her waist, very lightly touching her with his hands. His cheek rested against her hair; he felt her warm breath on his neck and shoulder while he, a little uncomfortable, waited for her to recover. She took deep, regular breaths, willing the queasiness to go away, and it did.

"I take it you came alone," he stated.

"I'm afraid so," she admitted. "I can't say I care for the method of transportation."

"Yes, it seems to be some kind of inter-dimensional transport," he theorized.

"I guessed that," she responded. She lifted her head and pulled away from him. "What's this?" Beverly peeled back the veil that covered his head and gasped.

"What happened . . . .?" she started before adopting a stern, physician's stance. "Lie down," she instructed.

"Beverly, it's not that bad . . . . ."

"Lie down."

". . . . . I'm fine, really . . . . ."

"Jean-Luc." He stopped talking. "I want to have a look at you. Now, lie down." She waited.

"I'd really rather not lie on my back," he finally admitted.

"Why?" she demanded, then, "Turn around." He complied. She found a long cluster of small, jagged holes down the center of his uniform. She pulled the tunic up and discovered a series of red burns running up his spine and down below his waistband.

"Damn," she swore. She looked about for a medical kit and belatedly realized that she didn't have one with her. However, she found her medical tricorder and scanner in the pockets of her lab coat. They didn't work. She cleared the scanner's memory and tried them again but the 'system failure' light stayed lit on the tricorder. Gritting her teeth, she fiddled around with it a bit more and finally reset it by shutting it down for a few seconds. She was rewarded with a green ready light a few seconds later.

"Problems, Doctor?" Picard asked, looking over his shoulder.

"Not anymore." She scanned his back, then his neck and head. The red marks were second and third degree burns. A second degree ultra-violet burn covered his head and neck that ended abruptly at his collar-line. She turned him around and checked his hands. The same ultra-violet burns ended in a line at his wrists, plus lines of chemical burns. He grasped one of her hands.

"I see you've met our tall, friend." The cuffs of her lab coat were discolored an ugly brown and she caught a whiff of a nasty acidic burning. "You'd better wash that off." He quickly took advantage of the distraction, carefully tugged his tunic back into place, stood, and led her into the bath room. She took off her coat and washed her hands and wrists as well as soaking the cuffs of her uniform, but it appeared that none of the corrosive had touched her skin. She then immersed the sleeves of the lab coat, letting the rest of it hang over the side.

Picard sat down next to her. In the wavering light from the pool, his burns looked even more ghastly. The burns on his face and scalp were blistering and swelling in places and his features were highlighted by the randomly spaced red marks, like viciously placed chicken pox. She took her hands out of the pool and, having nothing better to use, wiped them off on the lab coat.

She reached out and deliberately touched one of the red marks on his cheek. He flinched away from her. "Hurts?" she asked.

"Yes, Doctor," he answered, annoyed. The pain from the burns was insufferable and getting worse by the minute. Why did doctors have to ask such obvious questions?

"How did it happen?"

He briefly told her about the white void and the energy creatures. "I wasn't there long enough to appreciate the scenery. And nobody showed up while I was there except for that gray thing." She saw him delicately pull his collar away from where it chafed against his skin. "I'm sorry," she picked up the tricorder and scanner and held them a little guiltily. "I don't have anything with me except these."

He placed a hand over one of hers in a reassuring gesture, but all she saw were the blisters that were forming on his fingers. "I think I can wait until we find a way out of our current situation."

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p>Deanna Troi entered the auxiliary bridge, walked right up to Lieutenant Worf, and waited.<p>

"We're about ready here, Sir. We've got 68% functionality on the secondaries and we're 100% on the primaries. You can come up any time." the comm unit said.

"Excellent, Lieutenant. I'll be there shortly." He turned, nodded, briefly acknowledging her presence, and after assigning the auxiliary bridge to another officer, headed for the turbolift. Troi followed.

"Report Counselor." The door closed behind them but Worf didn't request any destination, so the car just sat there.

"Sickbay reports forty-eight casualties. Ten of them were not serious and they have been released. There are twenty-three critical cases, but none of them are expected to be fatal."

"And Commander Riker, Lieutenant Commander Data?"

"Commander Data suffered no damage to any of his brain functions. However, a micro-explosion cracked his central thorax and the components in that area need to be replaced. The work should only take a few hours."

Worf nodded.

"The work will take even longer, it seems, since you've assigned the people qualified to do it to work in engineering."

"After an attack of that magnitude, Counselor, our first priority is to restore the ship's engines and defensive capabilities. Commander Data understands that."

Troi sighed. He probably did. She didn't mention to the Klingon that his orders looked like a take-over of power. 'Emperor Worf' and 'Palace Coup' were a few of the comments she'd heard muttered.

"Commander Riker suffered a severe, focused energy shock to his entire nervous system," she continued, "somewhat similar to a massive phaser stun. He's expected to be unconcious for several hours."

"Then he suffered no permanent injuries?" Worf asked with no change of expression, but Deanna detected a reassuring increase in his concern.

"No, though Doctor Hill does expect him to suffer some short term memory loss."

Worf nodded, satisfied. "Bridge." The lift moved upward.

"I don't think that our last contact was a deliberate attack," she stated without looking up at him.

"I agree."

Now she looked up.

"It was much too easily deflected to be an effective attack. The sciences sections have concluded that these aliens were attempting to communicate with us. But their methods are incompatible with our well-being."

"Really?" Troi had sensed no hostility from the aliens, but it was difficult for her to sort anything else out from the jumble her empathy had picked up from them. They were like a storm of thoughts with no predictable coming or going.

"However," Worf went on, "their contact, regardless of its motives, is essentially the equivalent of an attack, and must be dealt with as such." The lift stopped and Worf marched out onto the bridge. Deanna followed.

"Sir," an over-excited ensign at the comm station reported. "Ship's sensors report another ship has appeared to starboard. The first one's disappeared completely."

Worf stopped himself from heading toward the comm station, his usual post, and went to the center chair below it.

"Where did it come from?" he demanded.

"It didn't come from anywhere, Sir," the ensign answered even more nervously. Worf didn't bother commenting on the disgraceful quaver in his voice. Humans were just that way and quite often they got better if it was ignored. "It just appeared there." Worf sat down.

/Communication?/

Everyone froze. Troi gasped from just receiving the clearest, purest telepathic touch she had ever experienced.

/Communication?/

Worf growled. Klingons reacted badly to telepathy.

"We hear you," Deanna spoke aloud for the sake of her crew mates.

/Ah, there you are. You have a lovely mind. And you speak for these here as well./

"Yes." There were more than one of them. She could feel them, their minds nestled next to the one who spoke to her.

/We are of knowledge that there is some difficulty here. We are here to help perhaps?/

Worf growled again.

* * *

><p><strong>- - - End Part 2<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**WRONG PLACE, WRONG DIMENSION**

by ardavenport

* * *

><p><strong>- - - Part 3<strong>

"Left."

LaForge turned with the med-tech.

"Stop." He stopped and released his grip on the med tech's arm, just above the elbow. "I'll get you a chair." He patted LaForge's shoulder and left. Geordi wanted to hit him.

"Geordi?" Data's voice.

"Hi there." He smiled. "I heard you were stuck here, too. So I though I'd stop by." He reached forward.

"Quarter meter to your left," Data told him. Geordi's fingers found the diagnostic table the android lay on and what felt like Data's knee. He followed the edge of the table forward. The med tech came back with a chair and guided LaForge into it. 'I know which way is down, you idiot,' he thought sourly. Mercifully, he left them alone.

"Well, how you doing?"

"I am relatively well, though currently immobile. The damage could have been much more severe and would have been had I been merely human." LaForge smiled. "As it is, the affected components can be easily replaced and I will be, as you say, good as new."

"Yeah, if we can get somebody to do it."

"I take it from your tone that you disapprove of Lieutenant Worf's decision to place primary emphasis on repairs to the _Enterprise_.

"Something like that."

"While it does prolong my immobility, I do believe it is the correct command decision, given our present circumstances."

Yeah," the engineer grudgingly agreed. "I just don't like being stuck here. And now Worf's up there negotiating with these new aliens to do something about that first bunch that attacked us. What did they call them...?"

"Counselor Troi called them Zinhoodi. I believe this is a Betazoid word, as these Zinhoodi do not normally use a spoken language. Lieutenant Worf has received the requisite Starfleet training regarding first contact with a new life form."

"Worf, negotiating?"

Data recalculated the current parameters. "He does have Counselor Troi to assist him."

"Yeah." They were silent for several minutes.

"Geordi?"

"Yeah?"

"I realize that my repairs must wait for the proper personnel to become available, but I do not understand why you are confined to sickbay as well."

Geordi shrugged. "The VISOR's a total loss. The sensors were fused. They'll have to recalibrate the replacement to my brain waves. It's kind of a delicate procedure and they're still a little backed-up here."

"It would be very painful to you, would it not?" Data asked.

"That, too."

Data was silent again. "Could you not use the bio links from the damaged VISOR on the new one and bypass the recalibration process?"

"Well, the linkages themselves weren't damaged, but the VISOR's not modular; it acts as one unit. I can't take parts from one and put them into another."

"But if the calibrations are unaltered in the damaged unit, could you not use them to copy new calibrations onto the new unit?"

Data watched Geordi slowly smile. "Maybe. If they weren't scrambled. But the static backup is protected; if it's okay, it'd save me a hell of a lot of agony. But I can't check them myself. And it'll still take a little time."

"My hands are free and fully functional. With the proper tools and instruction from you, I could accomplish the initial tasks. I could fix you. And then, perhaps, you could fix me?"

Geordi felt for Data, found a hand, and gripped it. "Data, you got yourself a deal."

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p>"You've been in contact with the <em>Enterprise<em>?"

"Yes." The gray creature stood at its station, meters above him.

"Can we speak to them?"

"Not directly. Our contact is maintained through my Next." Picard looked down at the creature that writhed at his feet. It was a mass of maroon tentacles, all wiggling and swaying independently. It apparently never stayed still.

/Zinhoodi-to you would be-ship has met _Enterprise_ and has re-directed Pasaid-name given by Troi-they do not name themselves in meaningful way to you/

"Why were we attacked by these Pasaid?" Picard asked carefully. He spoke slowly to Avi, more from a need to move his facial muscles as little as possible than from a desire not to be misunderstood. He'd had no idea before that he used his eyebrows or the bottom of his chin when he spoke. But now, the least, little twitch or turn of the head magnified the burning agony that was only just tolerable. The skin around his eyes was red and swollen with blisters and it was even painful for him to blink. Doctor Crusher had insisted on bundling him with damp cloths on his head and neck and wrapped around his hands. It helped a little.

"Pasaid did not choose to cause harm, Captain Picard," the gray creature, Avi, spoke from her place above. Her great, flat head pointed its forward edge and gaping hole underneath toward him. Picard glared up at her. His headache was coming back, echoing the throbbing of his burns. And his uniform, along with Doctor Crusher's lab coat, was still damp and a little chilly. Bright lights shone from above through a clustering of hanging foliage of greens, blues and reds. He and Doctor Crusher stood at the bottom of a huge spherical room. Other creatures stared down at them from their own stations, like balconies surrounding the stage of a play.

"They did cause harm," Picard answered.

/They will not again. We have only left to return you two to _Enterprise_. The means are a difficulty./

"If we can contact our ship, they could come here," he offered.

Eeee-eezzzrr-rrtttititit!

The humans winced from the sound of the high-pitched chirps from Avi.

"This is not a ship of space, Picard, though ship it be to your understanding. It does not travel the voids you know."

Tcktcktck-zzhhhhuuu-uuuuu.

The walls and floors vanished. Above and below, the world had become a shimmering, pearly blue void laced with gray-brown formations like three-dimensional islands. Avi and the other creatures around them stayed calmly in their places with no visible means of support.

He collided with another body, grabbed it for support, orientation, and lost his footing on the springy floor. For one sickening second, Picard felt the vertigo of falling in a world with no up or down. Then something firm but yielding contacted with his covered hands and then hit him hard in the face. The blisters on his nose and the heels of his palms broke and tore. Fluid dribbled down his face. He rolled to the side, struck a more yielding obstacle, and heard Doctor Crusher grunt from the impact.

"This is where we are, now, outside our artificial world," Avi's voice went on. "You have experienced only the mildest form of our travel when you were brought here from the dimension created by Pasaid. We do not think you would survive the complete transit back to _Enterprise_."

The blue vanished. The mottled gray walls and black floor returned, the well-lit room seeming dim compared to what he'd just seen. From underneath, Doctor Crusher pushed him away and he rolled again, this time to a sitting position.

Avi's legs melted into solidity before him. He looked up the length of her body and noticed for the first time that she didn't have any arms. Legs and body and head seemed to be as close to a humanoid shape as she came. "We have similar origins, I think. Our atmospheres are compatible. But when we left our world, to do so, we changed ourselves to accomplish transit. You clearly cannot change."

The Zinhoodi had crept closer, its tentacle swaying and squirmming like a deep red medusa without a face. The flat, round end of one of them touched him and he felt its powerful suction on the bottom of his boot. He pulled his foot away and the appendage stretched several centimeters before releasing its grip with a soft popping sound.

/The transit can accomplish, but we must adjust transit./ Picard stood and helped Doctor Crusher up. She looked surprised and then retrieved the cloth that had fallen from his head. Picard turned back to Avi. Doctor Crusher dabbed at his face. It stung the torn blisters and he turned his face away. The cloth came away stained red.

"So, we have to just wait here," Doctor Crusher burst out impatiently. Picard had asked her to say as little as possible and to let him do the talking.

"Doctor . . .,"

She ignored him.

"How long?" she demanded.

"Not long."

She pressed the cloth back to his face and he put up his hand to hold it in place. "Whether they meant to or not, these Pasaid injured Captain Picard while they were holding him."

"Doctor . . .,"

"We are unfamiliar with your life-forms." Avi pointed her head toward the physician. "Decided that any attentions we might give would as likely to cause harm as leaving you as you are."

"I'm a doctor." She pulled the tricorder out of a pocket of her lab coat and held it up. "I know what to do but I don't have any of the tools I need."

/We can show you what we have. You may make of it as you can. Suffice?/

"Yes," she responded gratefully.

Zzzzrr-rreeez-ttteee!

Another creature appeared. Picard had already seen at least nine different species in this place and only three of them had even a roughly humanoid shape; arms, legs, a head with eyes. This was not one of them. It resembled a lumpy jellyfish with waving tendrils underneath. It's body rested on a faintly glowing ball that drifted at waist height and it illuminated the body of the creature with its soft yellow glow.

/This is one who does with things of medical nature. I will assist with how I can./

Beverly swallowed and nodded toward the wriggling mass of tentacles. "Thank-you."

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p>"That is not acceptable." Worf brought his fist down on the table for emphasis. He addressed an assemblage of Zinhoodi on the conference table. Chairs were not even applicable to these creatures. The science officer had described them as brains with moving tentacles. They sat there in the middle of the table, together, the color of dried blood, a pile of six, all wriggling and squirming. It didn't seem to matter which one was on top or on the bottom. They changed places often enough. Occasionally the one on top would slide off and plop down too close to the edge of the table and one of the attending security people would nudge it back toward the others. The movement was supposedly involuntary. It was incredibly annoying. Worf liked it; it kept him angry.<p>

/You must wait./ One of the creatures repeated. This came from one at the bottom of the wriggling pile. It was a characteristic of these creatures' telepathy that one knew instinctively which one of them 'spoke'. This also made Worf angry.

/Until modifications for the transit to this place finish. Those who have your officers cannot transit or create dimensions as the Pasaid. Their transit would harm them greatly without changes. After that, then will be the return of those taken./

"We demand the immediate return of our officers!"

The creatures waited. They exuded not the slightest bit of impatience with Worf's demands. Deanna Troi, seated at the table on Worf's left, waited as well. It had become quite apparent to the Betazoid, soon after the appearance of these creatures, that it was virtually impossible for Worf to offend them even at his most antagonistic.

The Zinhoodi had caused a major security alert when they'd popped into existence on the bridge, unannounced, only a few hours ago. Worf had treated them with the utmost distrust; he still did. But after tricorder scans had verified that they were more or less innocuous, he grudgingly allowed them to be moved to the conference room. They could appear and disappear wherever they liked, but refrained from doing so on Worf's request. Deanna reported to Worf her evaluation of them; they were the most wonderful and magnificent telepaths she had ever encountered. The Klingon had frowned at the glowing adjectives she had used for them, but had accepted her report as a Starfleet officer. From her words, he'd dug out and used one bit of tactical information; deception was futile with the Zinhoodi. So, he did not attempt to modify his usual belligerent behavior at all and the Zinhoodi accepted the Klingon as he was.

What wonderful creatures for a budding Klingon diplomat to practice on, Deanna thought while she watched Worf try to stare the seething pile down. It was difficult for her not to smile; she knew that Worf did not appreciate smiling. But she was smiling in her mind and the creatures on the table 'smiled' back, their appendages waving like the petals of some weird, deep red flowers.

The silence dragged on, broken only by the rustling of the Zinhoodi perpetual movement and an occasional sucker popping on the table top.

"We demand that we at least be allowed to communicate directly with Captain Picard," Worf finally conceded the waiting game to the Zinhoodi.

/Captain Picard reports that he and Doctor Crusher are well and are being treated well by their hosts./

"That is not direct communication," Worf answered, unsatisfied.

/We have never needed any communication usable between two of your kind; there are none./ Worf inhaled audibly, angrily, before speaking again.

"Why is it so difficult for you to return our personnel?" he asked, changing tactics. "They were removed easily enough."

/They were removed by Pasaid to a dimension of their own creating. But even Pasaid recognized inadequate investigations of your nature. Requested help. We answered. Another of us is with a craft nearer to them and they were removed to there, for Pasaid are injurious to your kind./

"They have been harmed?" Worf pounced on this.

/Doctor Crusher reports that Captain Picard has sustained injuries from the Pasaid. She has been provided with some means of dealing with them, but wishes her staff to be ready upon return. Captain Picard did not refer to himself in what he wished passed on to you./

This was the first reassuring thing that Worf had heard so far. Captain Picard was a human of strength. He himself had only allowed the minimum attention to be given to his own minor injuries. His duties did not allow for a trip to sickbay until the crisis was past.

"Why can these Pasaid not return them?"

/This was our first response to Pasaid, to return one captured. They misinterpreted and took another, Doctor Crusher. We have successfully conveyed to them to not take any action at all./ The one that 'spoke' slid down the pile toward him, its flexing tentacles waving. /Any requests are like to lead to unpredictable results. The time, cause-and-effect concepts are difficult for them. And difficult for us to do without./

"How convenient that these concepts are causing this delay," Worf implied a conspiracy that he now knew was quite unlikely.

/Lieutenant Worf, solid matter is a difficult concept for Pasaid./

Worf let out a low growl. He now faced the most grim prospect for a Klingon, waiting. Humans did it so much better. They had refined tedium and inaction to a high art form. They called it diplomacy. But a wise warrior knew when to wait, and how to use time when fighting was unavailable.

"Very well," he agreed. "We will require exact information about the condition of our personnel and the most expedient means to return them."

/We will assist with this./

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p>Picard looked about the living area.<p>

"Doctor Crusher?" He checked the rooms, but she wasn't there. The creature that had escorted him back to the rooms where he'd first been taken didn't wait for him. It turned and with a flick of its tail bounded out through the door. He experimentally walked up to the portal. This time it slid open when he approached. Satisfied, he stepped back and let it close again. Sitting down on a gray square, he reached for his communicator.

"Crusher to Picard."

He tapped his comm badge. "Picard here."

"I'm finished here. I can do something about those burns now. If you're still interested."

He sighed. "At your convenience, Doctor."

He imagined he could hear the smile in her voice. "Are you in the rooms they assigned to us?"

"Yes."

"I'll be right there, Crusher out."

A few moments later she arrived, accompanied by another of the large-eyed creatures, which leapt away as quickly as Picard's escort. She carried a tray with several containers on it. She set it on another cube and sat down on a spongy circular cushion next to him. The give in the floor caused the top of the cube and tray to tilt slightly toward her, but not enough to upset any of the containers.

"Have something to eat?" She offered him two open cylinders, one tall, the other short and wide. He took them and examined the contents.

"You've been cooking?"

"Well, it's not going to make Will Riker's cookbook but it's nutritionally correct. And since it looks like we're stuck here for another eight hours, I figured we shouldn't wait until we got back." He sampled the liquid in the tall cylinder. It was something like soapy fruit juice. The short container held a few orange disks with a texture and taste of hardened, seasoned fat. 'Human Food', he thought to himself. He downed them anyway, not having had anything to eat for many hours. He supposed that tasty food replication was more difficult than he'd thought and that this was why the _Enterprise_ carried two civilian specialists in the field.

"Had enough?" Doctor Crusher held up her medical tricorder.

""Plenty." She had him remove his shirt and sit facing her on the floor mat, an array of containers and improvised instruments laid out next to her. The lighting was not what she would have wished; the only light source in the room came from central floor panels and it was difficult to work without casting a shadow over her patient, but the situation was workable. Picard sat glumly, waiting for the unpleasantries to begin, his own shadow huge on the wall two meters behind him.

"Sorry this took so long. Their replicator facilities aren't very sophisticated." She dabbed at the scabs on his nose and palms.

"Understandable, since these people can appear wherever they like. They wouldn't have much incentive to develop their transporter technology." She described to him some of the myriad of details that she'd had to go through with their 'medical officer' to finally get what she'd needed. She'd practically had to go over all of basic human biochemistry.

"It is quite possible they've never encountered our life form before," he reminded her.

She finished covering the scrapes and picked up a long metallic instrument. "This'll sting a little, but it should help with the deeper burns." She touched the tip of the instrument to a red mark on his chin. He winced. It stung a lot, but it quickly abated and was followed by a cool relief from the burn. After checking the result with the tricorder, she moved on to the others.

"Doctor, . . ." he started after she touched a burn on his lip.

"Hold still," she instructed. He sighed and waited, letting the conversation die. She was going to have to go over each and every one. He lowered his head for her to get at the ones on top of it. When she finished there, she had him reposition himself, so his back was to the light. She resumed, following the clusters of red marks down his back.

"Take off you pants," she ordered when she'd gotten down to his waistline. He wordlessly complied. She finished the few marks on his lower back while he sat cross-legged with a blanket over his lap.

"Now, how's that feel?" she asked when he'd turned back around, the blanket still firmly in place.

"Better." The pains on his back were considerably diminished as well as the stings on his head and hands, but he was still plagued by the awful burning on the surface of his skin. She put on a pair of gloves and opened a container. A sharp, antiseptic aroma came out. Picard turned his head away slightly, consciously not making a face; wrinkling his nose hurt.

"This should relieve the pain from the topical burns until we get back to the _Enterprise_ and, it should help drain the blisters." He was silent while she dabbed a little bit of it on his face with one hand. She checked the result again with the tricorder and when she was satisfied, put more of it on his face and neck. She had to be very slow and careful rubbing it in without breaking any of the larger blisters. He closed his eyes when she reached the swelling around them and kept them closed even when she moved on to his forehead and scalp. Beverly noted his compliance to her treatment, a sure sign that he sincerely had been in serious pain. Captain Picard was the kind of patient who would not go looking for medical attention unless he absolutely had to, especially if he thought he had to deal with a crisis that he thought was more important. This was doubly irritating to Doctor Crusher; it not only irked her physician's instincts, it also meant unnecessary delays while a dear friend possibly aggrevated his own injuries.

There were times when Beverly took some small pleasure in seeing his misguided independence falter when an injury finally forced him to seek help. Possibly it was retribution for any grief he might have caused her. Of course, she considered this sort of 'I told you so,' attitude to be a unprofessional. But at the moment, she didn't mind at all, literally, rubbing it in. Nor did it appear that he minded either. His posture relaxed considerably, like a cat being stroked, she thought.

When she'd finished the top of his head, she had to repeat herself when she asked him to turn around again. The worst burns were on the back of his neck and she took a lot of time massaging the wounds there. His head fell back and he actually let out an audible sigh of relief. Then he stiffened suddenly. She stopped.

"I'm sorry, did I hurt you?"

"No," he answered quickly. Cautiously, she continued, working her way down past the well defined burn-line left from the collar of his uniform to the burns on his back. He didn't have any large blisters on his back, so she was able to rub a little harder on the red marks there. His muscles were now tense and he seemed suddenly impatient with her treatment. Annoyed, she didn't quicken her pace a bit.

When she finally finished with the last, lowermost burn, she removed one glove, picked up her scanner and checked the surface of his skin for any spots she might have missed. The crevices behind his ears were untouched. She delicately rubbed some cream into the skin; he had blisters even there. He squirmed again.

"Hold still," she ordered. He let out a slow breath and said nothing. Finally she took off the other glove and checked his vital signs with the scanner and tricorder. She double-checked her findings. A smile spread across her lips. She had found the reason why Jean-Luc Picard had suddenly become so squirrelly.

He had an erection.

"Are you finished, Doctor?" he demanded.

"Yes." She laid the tricorder aside, neatly lining it up with the other instruments. "I'm flattered."

"No compliment intended, Doctor," he told her shortly. Abruptly he got up, wrapping the blanket about himself. With his back still toward her, and his uniform and boots tucked under his arm he turned and marched out of the room. She heard a long splash of water spilling over the lip of the basin in the next room.

Beverly bent forward in silent laughter. The cold side of the basin, she thought to herself, holding in any audible sounds of mirth. It really wouldn't do for him to hear her amusement.

After a long while he returned, fully dressed, he stood in the doorway to the living area. Beverly had returned her instruments to the tray on the cube and now sat calmly on the floor mat, her hands folded in her lap.

"I'm going to speak with Avi, again. I suggest you get some rest while I'm gone. We still have a while to wait." He tugged his uniform tunic into place and left.

Slowly, Doctor Crusher fell to the side until she was lying on the mat. She started laughing again.

**- - - End Part 3**


	4. Chapter 4

**WRONG PLACE, WRONG DIMENSION**

by ardavenport

* * *

><p><strong>- - - Part 4<strong>

The open lift slowly lowered Captain Picard to a stiff, netted walkway. He had no idea what it was for though he was sure that it was never used by any humanoids. He stepped off the lift onto the netting. He was grateful for its wide width for it had no railings and a small sea of slimy water stretched to either side of it. The air was warm and thick and foul, strong enough to overwhelm his nostrils, numbed from the smell of the film of cream that covered his face.

This is a mistake, he thought to himself.

A sound like a roar reverberated in the room. He heard a splash and a fin cut the murky water and then slide beneath its gray surface. It emerged a few meters away from him. It topped the flat span of Avi's head.

"You wished something, Captain Picard." Her voice sounded low and distant, as if it came from some unseen orifice in the back of her head. It echoed beautifully in the large room.

"We haven't discussed why the Pasaid chose my ship to investigate," Picard answered in his own resonant tones; Doctor Crusher's treatment had considerably eased the facial pains that had curbed his speech earlier.

"It was there."

"That's not a good reason."

"That is the only one," Avi responded calmly, the top of her flat head bobbing a tiny bit with the gentle motion of the muck about her. "Our transit is confined to very limited, affected portions of your dimension. Your ship entered such a portion and became visible to the Pasaid. They came."

"We were investigating radiation anomalies in that sector of space."

"To you, spatial displacements of transit would appear as anomalies. You should avoid that place, avoid any further contact with Pasaid, or any others like them."

"We don't mean any harm. We come in peace."

"So do the Pasaid. Their motives are difficult to assess; they are not aggressive."

"I suppose so," he acknowledged before going on. "We've offered to assist you in any way we can with this 'transit' back to our own space."

"You have."

"That offer still stands. If any of the resources of my ship can be used to help, you have only to ask."

"Understood."

"We represent the United Federation of Planets and we would be pleased, after we have returned, to establish relations with you or your representatives."

"Understood."

Picard waited silently, but their was nothing else to be said or gained. He'd made his offer and it had been neutrally acknowledged and tacitly, but politely, rejected. When he, and Lieutenant Worf on the _Enterprise_ had made their first offer earlier, it had met a similar response. Avi gave no explanation, but her Next and the other Zinhoodi did.

To be of any help at all they would have to learn, to personally comprehend, the multi-dimensional nature of the 'transit' technology. Apparently this was considered mentally difficult and physically dangerous to the uninitiated. The Zinhoodi, Avi, and all the other creatures he'd encountered seemed to have a mutual agreement placing restrictions upon passing the inter-dimensional transit ability to the uninformed.

Your 'Prime Directive' applies to us, he mused. It seemed odd to him to be on the receiving end of such an edict. The reasons seemed sensible to him; the social consequences of people being able to appear and disappear at will could possibly be devastating to Federation society. But even though he understood and agreed with it, he felt belittled by the restriction anyway. If he were to be declared 'un-ready' for the knowledge of another culture, he preferred not to know about it at all.

"Then, thank you for your time." He turned to leave.

"Captain Picard." The netting he stood on suddenly tilted backwards. He counter-balanced forward and went to his knees. He looked around his shoulder. Avi stood towering behind him and dripping with ooze.

"If this situation arises again, we would be pleased to assist. Again. But we will not always be positioned to come to aid."

He slowly, carefully, got to his feet, maintaining his balance away from the puddles of muck before him. After having experienced the touch of the appendages that lay concealed in her forward orifice, he had no wish to find out what Avi chose to swim in.

"No offense taken, Avi."

The great, flat head lowered toward him and then raised.

"None given."

She vanished. But whether she'd gone back to the murky pool or to another part of the ship, he didn't know and didn't stay to find out. He'd said what he wanted. And the stench of the place was getting to him. He left as quickly as he could.

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p>Beverly heard Captain Picard return to the living area. No other creature that she'd seen had footsteps even remotely like a humanoid. And she was familiar with the sound of his step. The door closed behind him.<p>

He stood in one place for a moment. She lay on her side, on the floor mat, her back to the door and covered with a blanket.

He walked towards her. She felt his weight on the opposite side of the mat, heard him take his boots off. He made loud blanket-flapping noises and then lay down.

Beverly smiled to herself. If he wasn't going to say anything, she didn't feel impelled to. Jean-Luc was clearly embarrassed about the incident and would probably wish to 'consider the matter closed', as he liked to put it. She didn't think that the fact that she wasn't embarrassed, or even concerned, would improve his view of the matter either; mentioning it would probalby only rub salt into his wounded pride. But, in fact, Beverly could not remember how many times in the past that this sort of thing had come up with a male patient she was treating.

Of course, it never helped that male patient's pride if he was possibly attracted to her, she thought fondly. Or, if I might possibly be attracted to him.

She yawned, tired. Her hair tickled her forehead and she brushed her bangs aside.

"Doctor."

"Hmmmmm," Now what?

"Beverly?"

She rolled over. He'd just had to wait until she was nice and comfortable before disturbing her, she supposed. He was lying on the opposite edge of the mat, well out of arm's reach.

"I wanted to apologize for my . . . . . . reaction, earlier."

He was lying on his back, his hands grasping the edge of the blanket at his chest, as if her were hiding his modesty. The blanket lay perfectly smooth over him, a tidy contrast to the wrinkled pile of cloth covering her.

She rolled her eyes upward, but they were lying in shadow and he didn't see the pained look on her face.

"Jean-Luc, believe me, I've seen it before."

"Oh, I'm sure as a medical doctor you've seen all sorts of . . . . ."

"On you."

He shut up. "What?" he finally ventured.

"You've been in sickbay a few times, Jean-Luc." Beverly Doctor Selar's face as she called the chief medical officer's attention to a new development on their patient who was heavily sedated in ICU after five hours of surgery removing Borg implants from him. Beverly had peeked under the sheet. "Well, at least we know that works," she'd commented, passing Selar a hypo to quell the reaction to the post-surgery tissue regeneration procedures.

He almost asked her 'when', but stopped himself. He didn't want to know. Damn doctors, anyway, he thought. They often knew things that he, himself, would rather not know.

"Well then, that's fine I suppose," he said noncommitally, turning back to stare up at the ceiling.

"Fine," she answered casually. Too casually, he thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her shadowy outline on her side of the mat. She was facing him now, looking at him, and he didn't like it. He rolled over, turning his back to her.

The edge of the mat pressed on his hip and side and the rest of him toppled off onto the springy floor, dragging the blanket with him.

In his attempt to maintain as discreet a distance as possible from the Doctor, he hadn't allowed himself enough room on one side. In the shadows, Beverly smiled, but didn't laugh; she'd gotten most of that over with after the initial incident. She waited and watched while he picked himself up, tugging the blanket out from underneath himself, and sat down on the mat.

"I don't suppose I have any dignity left," he stated with a long sigh.

"Well," she sat up halfway, propped up on one elbow. "There might still be a few shreds lying around here, somewhere."

She saw his mouth twitch in what might have been a suppressed smile. He sat above the shadows, his profile illuminated by the floor lights. His skin was a less vivid shade of pink and the blisters seemed to have drained markedly. He didn't look towards her while he spoke.

"I don't like being ill. I don't like being injured. And I don't like exposing myself to all the indignities that go with it," he announced.

"Most people don't."

"Most people can get used to it. I never have."

She sat up now. "Most people never get used to it. They just handle it a little better." His shoulders stiffened, then relaxed.

"I suppose I must be the worst patient on the _Enterprise_."

"Second worst."

"Oh?" He seemed surprised. "And who has the honor?"

"Me." He looked at her. "Remember when we fell down that hole on Minos and I broke my arm and leg. Well, Doctor Hill told me later that if I ever ended up in sickbay again he was going to ask for a transfer."

He smiled a little.

"I was very glad you were there when that happened." He turned away, back towards the lights.

"Well, I am not glad that you are here, Doctor. One of us in this situation is more than enough." His hand went to his neck.

"Don't scratch," she ordered. He jerked his hand away. "I'm touched by your sympathy," she continued.

"Sympathy is not going to get us out here," he told her. "And I can think of better times and places for it." Annoyed, he looked about the room.

"We never seem to get around to it when we have the chance," she murmured softly, lowering her eyes.

"Hmmmm?"

She slid forward and pulled his hand away from his face. "I said, don't scratch."

"I'm sorry, Doctor, but it's starting to itch."

"Well, then . . .," she retrieved a cloth at the foot of the mat, " . . . cover it up." She unfolded it and draped his head with it. He glared at her from underneath the veil. She grasped the edge between her thumb and forefinger and pulled it down over his face.

"Thank you, Doctor," he said, utterly unamused. Then, without moving the covering, he lay back down on his side, still facing her. She watched him for a moment, then took the blanket crumpled at his feet, spread it out, and covered him with it. Gently, she pulled the cloth away from his face. In the gloom, she could just see his eyes looking back at her. It seemed to her that she was seeing in them exactly what he was feeling at that moment, if only she could figure out what it was.

Her fingers rested on his temple. His skin was warm. Her lips parted, as if to speak, but she didn't say anything. He closed his eyes.

She took her hand away and, pulling up another blanket, lay down facing him.

He opened his eyes. Hers were closed. Said all the wrong things, he thought. Or none of the right ones. We never do say anything when we have the chance, do we?

He slowly reached up and placed his hand over her upturned one lying between them. Her fingers moved a little under his; her thumb briefly caressed his fingers before lying still. He closed his eyes again.

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p>"Relinquishing command to you, Sir." Worf addressed the newly repaired Data formally on the bridge.<p>

"Acknowledged, Lieutenant." Data nodded and took the command chair. Worf returned to his comm station, behind and above the command section. "Status report."

"Ship's repairs are proceeding on or ahead of schedule. Warp drive will be restored in another five hours. The Zinhoodi have returned to their ship. They report that the craft containing the Captain and Doctor Crusher is proceeding, with necessary modifications to their trans-dimensional drive, and should arrive in 4.3 hours. The Captain and Doctor are reported to be well and resting before the trip."

"Very good, Lieutenant." Data shifted his attention to the status display in the arm rest of the chair.

Lieutenant Commander LaForge, new VISOR in place, approached Worf from behind. He'd come to the bridge with Data under the pretext of checking the engineering station there.

"Worf?"

Worf looked up from his station. "Commander?"

"Worf, I, uh, I wanted to apologize for blowing up at you earlier. You were just doing your job and I shouldn't have tried to stop you."

Worf let his exasperation show. "I have never understood why humans consider anger to be something that needs to be apologized for."

Geordi shook his head slowly. "It's just something we do, Worf."

"I know," the Klingon responded. "I accept your apology, Commander." He turned back to his duties.

"And Worf . . . ." The Klingon looked up again. "If you ever do that again . . . . ."

"Lieutenant," Data had silently come around to Worf's station and was standing behind him.

"Sir," Worf addressed him. LaForge stepped back.

"I am told by others that you have been on duty for at least the past ten hours."

"Yes, Sir."

"And that you, yourself, sustained some minor injuries in the last incident that you have, as yet, not tended to."

"Nothing of any consequence, Sir."

LaForge started to smile, but Data's features remained impassive.

"Then, I believe it would be appropriate for you to tend to your own physical needs now, so that you will be rested for when the Captain and Doctor Crusher are returned."

"Sir, I am . . . . ."

"You are relieved, Lieutenant," Data told him politely. Geordi's smile grew. "You will report to sickbay and then to your quarters until you are needed."

Worf straightened to attention. "Sir." He turned. Geordi's smile vanished as Worf's eyes fell upon him, but returned after he'd passed and entered the turbolift. Humans, and androids who wished to be human, Worf thought, had a very devious and perverted sense of revenge. It made living among them quite bearable.

* * *

><p><strong>- - - End Part 4<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**WRONG PLACE, WRONG DIMENSION**

by ardavenport

* * *

><p><strong>- - - Part 5<strong>

Beverly was flying. As if she'd been shot out of a cannon, she hurtled through the air. The wind carried her along over an undulating landscape far below. It's whistle acquired voices and whines and cries demanding her attention, but there were too many of them to understand what they said. The air currents started spinning her around, end over end, and the ground started sprouting upward in places, reaching up to swat her as she went whizzing by. Things rushed past her face. She covered her eyes but she could still see them coming at her. A mountain, a wall of rock, rushed up at her and her stomach twisted in the freefall.

Involuntarily, she screamed.

"Beverly!" The shapes and sounds and the mountain melted away and coalesced into one shape looming over her. She grabbed it and sat up.

"Jean-Luc." She hugged him tightly, using his solidness to wash away the clinging terror she had just experienced. Surprisingly, he hugged her just as tightly, his arms clamped around her waist, his head on her shoulder. She thought she heard a ragged sob escape him, but she wasn't sure. It happened to him, too, she thought

"I don't suppose we experienced the same thing?" she asked.

"Maybe not the same thing, but probably something similar." The tone of his voice told her that he was not in the mood for exchanging notes.

Something touched her leg. She jumped. A Zinhoodi had appeared on the mat and was now kneading the area around their legs with its appendages. They both pulled their legs away from it.

/Ah, no permanent harm here./

"What did you do?" Picard demanded, slowly relaxing his hold on Doctor Crusher.

/A test only. We have insulated this area from the worst deformations of the transit and we have but one more modification to make with your help./

"You should have warned us," Picard confronted the creature.

Avi appeared behind the Zinhoodi, the light from the floor reflected brilliantly from the underside of her head. Then two of the little jumping creatures. Then the jellyfish-like creature. Then four more dark shapes. Suddenly they were surrounded.

/The circumstances of need required you as you were./

"We wished to attempt the modified transit with you in your dormant state," Avi explained.

"And?" Picard prompted.

/We find that we can shield out the gross effects of the transit, but not the subtle ones. They would do no permanent harm. But we find from our test; they are undesirable.

/But you could be made purposefully unaware of the effects./

Picard and Crusher looked at each other, the source of the nightmare now clear. "Then you're saying that we can only make the trip if we're unconscious?"

"Correct," Avi went on. A small creature extended a long gleaming instrument to them. Doctor Crusher released her hold on the captain, took it, and and then went for the tricorder on the cube next to the mat and returned with it.

"We seem to have survived your test. Is that absolutely necessary?" Picard asked while she examined the device.

"That was only a brief transit. So not to cause any harm if modifications were incorrect. The actual trip to be more extended."

"Doctor?"

She scrutinized the readings. "It's a little strong, but it should do the the trick. It's very similar to Paltadamine."

/A substance encountered in review of your physiology,/ the Zinhoodi explained.

"Then you find it acceptable, Doctor?" Picard questioned.

She nodded. "It should work fine." She turned the instrument over. It contained exactly two dosages and they were even scaled for the difference in body masses between her and Picard.

"Then all you're waiting for is us." he stated.

/That is all./

Still seated on the mat he straightened, tugging his uniform tunic into place. He held out his hand. "Doctor."

She stared back at him and didn't move.

"Doctor," He slid closer to her while the creatures around them watched. "I don't want any argument on this...," he began in a hushed voice.

"Then don't argue," she responded in the same half whisper.

"While we are here I am responsible for both of us. I will . . . .,"

"Can you do anything if anything goes wrong with this?"

"You just said that it should work fine."

"That doesn't mean it will."

"Do you have so little faith in your own professional opinion, Doctor?" She glared at him. He knew he'd lost the argument as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

"My professional opinion is not what I'm questioning." He looked away from her.

"Sorry." He nodded, conceding to her. "Proceed, Doctor."

She took his arm, pushed the sleeve back, and pressed the device to his exposed skin. He felt a cool stinging from the injection and for a moment nothing happened. His head nodded forward, his muscles going numb.

"Lie down." He felt Doctor Crusher's arms supporting him, guiding him down into the shadows, one hand under his head. He rolled it from side to side, trying to clear the awful dizziness that had suddenly overtaken him.

"Shhh," She laid her hand on his forehead, stilling the motion. "Just relax. Don't fight it." He tried to lift his arm, but it was too heavy to move.

"I . . . I am glad you're here, Doctor," he said haltingly, fighting to keep his eyes open.

"Me, too."

She watched him reluctantly close his eyes. She monitored his vital signs while they settled into a deep sleep. When she was satisfied, she lowered the scanner. The creatures around her were still waiting.

She retrieved her medical jacket, put the tricorder and scanner into the pockets and put it on, and then picked up the hypo again. She lay down next to Picard and then on impulse she rolled to her side, her body now touching the length of his. She quickly pulled her sleeve back, injected herself, and then stuffed the hypo into a pocket with the scanner. Then she laid her arm across his chest in a loose embrace and laid her head on his arm. With the warmth of his body next to hers, she closed her eyes.

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p>Worf stepped into the transporter room. Two security people were there along with Mister O'Brien, the transporter chief, but the medical team had not arrived. The Klingon scowled.<p>

"You have their coordinates?" he asked O'Brien.

"I'm locked on to their communicator signals, Sir. But there's a problem with the others. One of them won't fit in the chamber. It's too tall." Perhaps then, they won't come after all, Worf thought. He still questioned Lieutenant Commander Data's decision to allow some of the aliens that had supposedly rescued the captain and the doctor to come aboard. Worf had demanded that they at least use the transporter (even though these aliens clearly didn't need to) so that they could be properly scanned for anything harmful.

The Klingon was also highly displeased by the fact that these aliens had waited until just before they would arrive to inform them that Captain Picard and Doctor Crusher had needed to be rendered unconscious to safely make the trans-dimensional trip.

"Data to Lieutenant Worf," came from the intercom.

"Worf here."

"They report they are ready for transport. Is everything ready there?"

The medical team and Counselor Troi entered the transporter room.

"All present here. But Chief O'Brien reports that one of the aliens won't fit in the transporter chamber."

"Is the problem volume or mass?" an unfamiliar voice on the comm asked, presumably one of the aliens that Data had spoken to.

"Uh, volume," O'Brien answered.

"That can be changed." A moment later the scan readout showed all clear. O'brien activated the transporter.

A great and proud creature appeared. It had grayish armor-like skin and a huge elaborately shaped head with no recognizable facial features at all. It sat at the back of the chamber. Before it sat two mean little creatures with bulging eyes and, next to them, yet another Zinhoodi. Before them all were the the Captain and Doctor Crusher. They were stretched out together, lying almost on top of each other.

The medical personnel swarmed over them and a moment later one of the doctors pronounced them stable. Worf reported this to the bridge while the two were taken from the transporter pad. The Klingon noticed one doctor tenderly picking up Doctor Crusher and carefully laying her on one of the stretchers. The Klingon expected that if he were ever seriously injured that his staff would treat him with more respect.

The medical personnel left with their charges. The other creatures that had remained to the rear of the transporter advanced.

The gray creature bleeped and appeared to walk with difficulty. When it reached the steps of the transporter, its legs unfolded from its sides and it rose above the Klingon to its full height. Worf and his security people stepped back warily. The two small creatures hopped forward, dragging the Zinhoodi between them.

Worf looked up at the gray creature. He'd been told it was called Avi. Magnificent, the klingon thought.

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p>Commander Riker heard voices. He moved his head. He felt strangely lethargic, like he really didn't want to wake up, but he did want to find out who the voices belonged to.<p>

He opened his eyes. The world was a blur. He blinked several times and the ceiling of sickbay slowly came into focus. Something has happened, he realized. He looked about. His neck felt stiff. He saw Worf and some medical personnel clustered about other examination tables, but his eyes were drawn to a strange creature at the far end of the room. It looked like a huge statue with a flat head.

Something moved on his legs. Suddenly, a soft, writhing pile of tentacles with sucker ends lay across his knees.

Reflexively, he cried out and tried to roll the mass off of him.

Worf appeared and snarling, seized the creature and ruthlessly threw it against a wall. It landed with a sickening splat and stuck there.

"Mister Worf!" Riker heard Captain Picard's voice rising in anger, then a lot of shuffling and more voices.

/No harm done./ The creature, now slithering down the wall, answered. Riker found its sudden telepathy even more unnerving. Deanna Troi appeared and laid her hands on his shoulders. /I should have announced myself better./ It hit the floor, rolled, and squirmed. Troi placed her hand on his forehead and spoke to him soothingly.

"Will somebody tell me what the hell's going on here?" Riker demanded, trying to sit up. Troi continued speaking softly to him, and pressed his shoulder back down on the bio-bed.

Captain Picard appeared from behind Worf, who stepped back. The Captain was wearing blue sickbay pajamas, the same type that Riker himself wore. His face and scalp were bright pink and covered with delicate ridges of peeling skin. He looked hideous.

"Get a hold of yourself, Number One."

This actually annoyed Riker a bit. Suddenly waking up in sickbay, creatures appearing out of nowhere, he thought he had very good reasons for being upset.

"Excuse me, Captain, but has something been going on that I should perhaps be made aware of?" he asked a trifle snidely and settled back on the bed.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Deanna asked him.

That question threw him. He had no idea how he'd gotten into sickbay. "Um, well, . . . . ." He searched his mind and drew an utter blank. He started rifling through any recent memories he could dredge up. He'd had breakfast that morning, whenever that had been . . . . . .

"Doctor, we haven't finished your physical . . . . ."

"I'm fine." Doctor Crusher elbowed herself away from Doctor Hill. She also wore blue sickbay pajamas. Picard snagged her arm and asked her where she thought she was going.

. . . . . . He'd had eggs, and ham, with toast, and a glass of orange juice . . . . . .

"I don't intend to deal with any transfer requests from your staff, Doctor Crusher."

"I give the orders in sickbay, Captain."

"You don't take them very well, it seems." Picard appeared to be enjoying himself.

. . . . . . Then he'd gone to a staff meeting . . . . .

Still angry, Doctor Crusher capitulated and was herded away, along with Captain Picard. Worf followed them.

. . . . . . The _Enterprise_ was just beginning a mission to investigate some radiation anomalies . . . . .

Will Riker was utterly confused. Deanna sensed it. The room was filled with a post-crisis relief that she found quite comforting. She also sensed the Zinhoodi, creeping about on the floor, unnoticed except by her. It 'smiled' telepathically at her. Worf seemed very satisfied with himself. Doctor Crusher's ire melted into some irony she shared with Captain Picard. The two little hopping creatures didn't like the hard floor of the _Enterprise_. And Avi's feet hurt.

"Deanna," She looked down at Riker. He gazed up at her with large blue eyes, looking totally lost. He was playing on her for sympathy. She sensed it. "What happened?" he implored.

She smiled down at him. And he knew that she sensed that he wasn't nearly as helpless as he looked. She indulged him anyway. He knew she would.

She laid her hand on his forehead, brushing his bangs back. "Well, to start, you might say we were in the wrong place at the wrong time..."

* * *

><p><strong>o*o o*o o*o END o*o o*o o*o<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Note:<strong> This story was written by me and first printed (under the name 'Anne Davenport') in 1992, in _Involution _2, a fanzine back in the hard-copy and snail-mail days of fan-fiction, when the internet was starting to take off.

**Disclaimer:** All Trek characters and the universe belong to Paramount; I'm just playing in that sandbox.


End file.
